


Horror Movie Blues

by Xparrot



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Community: sga_flashfic, Episode Tag, Episode: s05e07 Whispers, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-07
Updated: 2008-09-07
Packaged: 2017-10-30 03:15:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/327154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xparrot/pseuds/Xparrot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-mission, John's a bit freaked out, but Rodney's there for him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Horror Movie Blues

**Author's Note:**

> Written for sga_flashfic's "comfort" challenge.

"They _looked_ like bugs," John said. "I know they weren't, but—the way their eye sockets were scarred, criss-cross, kind of like bug eyes are, you know, with the..." He gestured, drawing lines over his eyelids with one finger.

"Faceted?" Rodney suggested.

"That, yeah." John nodded hard, almost spilling his beer. "And they moved like bugs, too, all jerky and skittering," illustrating with a shadow puppet, his fingers twitching. "And the mist they put out, it _smelled_ like bug mist."

"Bugs smell like mist?"

"It smelled musty, like bugs. That smell you get in a cellar where spiders have moved in and set up Halloween Town. Or on a Wraith ship, in their cells. Cobwebby. _That_ smell."

Rodney shuddered and took a swallow of his own beer to hide it, because that smell he did know, far too well.

"It wasn't fun," John declared, with the solemn candor particular to three and a half beers, one step past buzzed and two before drunk. It was usually the point that he'd stop, take a good look at his half-empty bottle and then set it aside, but tonight he tipped it back, poured the rest down his throat.

That more than anything told Rodney how rattled he really was, because John tended to need some impetus or excuse to make himself talk, but he didn't always need to talk.

"Not to mention," John said morosely, "I'm not going to be able to watch a horror movie for months. They're not nearly as cool when you're actually in one. With the abandoned village and the fog, couldn't see a damn thing, and when they grabbed Vega...too damn fast to do anything." He swallowed the last drops at the bottom and put the bottle with the other empties on his bedside table, then leaned back against the wall.

"Sorry about Vega," Rodney said awkwardly, toying with the mouth of his own bottle. He'd taken his second beer from the six-pack more to get John out of a hangover tomorrow than because he'd wanted it.

"Yeah," John said. His eyes were closed, head tipped against the wall's decorative grooves.

"Sorry I didn't go," Rodney said, not because he'd wanted to—he wasn't especially eager to visit any more of Michael's chambers of horror, and unlike John he hadn't had any paperwork to avoid—but the team all should know better than to let Sheppard go off on his own; it never worked out well.

"I wanted Ronon along, actually," John said. "With his gun he probably could've taken them all out without breaking a sweat."

"It's nice to be appreciated."

"Sorry, Rodney," John said, sounding anything but. "It's just, if I'm going to be stuck in a horror movie, you're about the last guy I'd want along. At least with Teldy's team there wasn't a lot of girly screaming to draw the monsters' attention."

"Thanks a lot!"

"Rodney," John said, not contrite, but he opened his eyes and sat up, leaned forward on the bed to circle his fingers around Rodney's wrist before Rodney could get up in a huff. Not that he was really planning to anyway, but it was the principle of the thing.

"You wouldn't have had any fun either," John said, his eyes a little too serious from the beer. "Trust me, you were better off missing it. I sure as hell wish I had. Place could've made for a great movie, but it was a fucking lousy mission."

"Yeah, I got that," Rodney said quietly.

John hadn't let go of his wrist, grip not quite tight enough to pinch, but firm, a band of heat against his skin. "Those—they weren't bugs, but they seriously freaked me out," he said.

"Yeah," Rodney said, swallowing the obvious, 'I noticed,' because John didn't admit that kind of vulnerability often, even after four beers. He put the bottle on the table and sat back on the bed, shifting back until he bumped into John's outstretched legs, the warm pressure of his thigh supporting his lower back. "But, you're okay now. You got rid of Michael's things, and you made it back safely, with Carson, and, um..." he stopped, because 'most of the others' sounded insensitively crass. "And Carson got some useful research out of it. So it wasn't a total failure—we've had worse missions."

"Yeah," John said, and shut his eyes again. "Just wish they hadn't been... I didn't sleep too great last night."

"You should've said something," Rodney said. "That, I could've helped you with," and he twisted where he sat against John's side, putting one hand down on the mattress on John's other side to stabilize himself, and leaned over to kiss John, pushing his head against the wall.

"—That is, if you want me to," Rodney clarified when the kiss broke. "If you want—"

"Yeah," John said, softly, but his lips quirked into most of a smile. "I—that'd be okay." His hand came up to curl around the back of Rodney's neck, warm and callused, thumb stroking the indent of his spine at the base of his skull.

"Well, fine, if it'd be _okay_."

John smirked at the sarcasm, his face near enough for Rodney to feel the puff of warm beer-laden breaths against his cheeks. Rodney wondered on the scale from decent to reprehensible, how bad it was to be enjoying John's closeness—not that he had anything but sympathy for John's entomophobia, but there was something to be said for the way horror movies made girls shriek and clutch your hand and hide their faces against your chest. Of course the Pegasus equivalent was significantly more traumatizing, but the principle stood. Unprincipled though it might be.

"We don't have to—you know, we don't have to do anything," Rodney said hastily. "I'm only—sleeping is okay, just sleeping would be totally fine with me, you need the rest, and I've been going all out, I could use a good night's—"

John's thumb stilled. "So no comfort sex?" he said in a small voice, that almost might have wavered.

Rodney blinked. "Well, if you—I mean, if that's what you want—whatever you want, I don't want to pressure you, but if that would make you feel better—wait." He stopped, pulled back enough to get a better look at John's face. His expression was softened by the alcohol, eyes a little hazy and the pupils wide and glassy black, but still, there was a glitter of definite intent, beer or not. "Wait a minute, are you trying to—do you _want_ me to comfort you with my, um, with—"

John's gaze slid away shiftily. "They really sucked," he said in a low voice. "Michael's monsters, they really, really sucked. And I—bugs creep me out, okay? And those things creeped the fuck out of me."

"Yes, I got that," Rodney said, "but that—are you _using_ your phobia to try to _score_?"

John's eyes shifted the other way, still avoiding Rodney's. "Um. Maybe a little?"

"Because that would be absolutely _stupid_ ," Rodney informed him. "I assure you, you don't need an excuse. I've always thought that's one of the best points of being in a relationship, that when you want to you can just—not that we're, that is, we haven't said we're officially...but with everything that's gone down, not to mention how many times _we've_ gone down—um, that is... What I'm saying is, if you want to, you just have to ask."

John hauled his eyes up to Rodney's. He didn't quite look surprised, but—something was there, under the faint haze of the beer, but before Rodney could get a closer look John settled his hand firmer on the back of Rodney's neck to draw him in again.

"Okay," John murmured against his lips. "I'm asking."

"You know," Rodney panted, some minutes later, on his back and mostly undressed, and as sticky with sweat as if John's room were now a sauna—"it occurs to me—" his breath caught as John's lips moved lower, but he babbled on—"occurs to me, if we were in a horror movie, that—isn't it the teenagers sneaking off to have sex who are the first to go?"

John paused, raised his head momentarily to glare. "See," he said, "that's just why it's better you weren't along."

"Though we're not teenagers," Rodney mused, "so—ah—no, don't stop, right there—so the cliché might not—god, _yes_ —but what it comes down to, we're lucky we aren't _actually_ living in a horror movie. Space vampires notwithstanding."

John rolled his eyes, but thankfully didn't stop, and Rodney expressed his gratitude until his voice gave out.

Afterwards, he said, a bit hoarse and very quietly, as if there were monsters around that might hear and come for them, "Besides, even if we were, I think, um—I think it. This. Would be worth it."

"Yeah," John mumbled, half-asleep with his face mashed against Rodney's chest, but he sounded like he knew what he was saying. "So do I."


End file.
